New Bill Gates interview, lots of good stuff

[Sethamin]

How is this a good thing? He's talking as if the fact that the Core 360 doesn't have a HDD is great for the consumer when it definitely isn't..

This lack of HDD was the biggest mistake that MS made on the Xbox360 and the sole reason why the 50MB download limit on XBLA will probably never get lifted.. (I remember them saying something about allowing none HDD owners to play the games from the memory cards..)
Also pretty much the majority of the Xbox360's pulling points for the consumer (downloadable games, movies, videos, music, episodic content, extra game content etc etc..) are a based around a system which requires the user to download something to some kind storage media.. I don't see how the lack of a mass storage (meaning you swapping around several small-sized memory cards which are so bloody expensive NEways, that for the price of 3 you might as well buy a friggin' HDD..!) makes the customer's life any better nor offers any kind of benefit over the alternative..

In the end it as to save money for them (ms) and no amount of PR bull will convince us (consumers) otherwise..

Well.. Maybe some i guess..

First, of course lacking a HDD is a disadvantage. That's why you charge less. Your whole post just sets up a straw man. No one is saying that not having a HDD is a better product. But the whole point is that not every consumer on earth wants to connect to Live and go through the Marketplace and use XBLA. Some just want it to play games and that's all. Look at the sales of the PS2 right now for your proof. For those people, a HDD-less SKU is ideal. It's all about targeting a different segments and giving them an attractive, cheap option.

Second, has been said many, many times before (and in the article, and quoted in the OP), the advantage of the HDD-less SKU will be realized later in the lifecycle when 360 is able to hit $150 or less. The PS3 is going to have a ridiculous amount of trouble hitting that pricepoint without taking a big loss. Again, this has been enumerated many times before, but HDD don't get cheaper, they just get bigger. Silicon (e.g. chips) can be cost-reduced to almost nothing, but the smallest HDD on the market will always cost at least $30.

Third, the 50 MB limit is already going to be broken very soon. Plus, I think it's pretty obvious MS will raise the limit permanently once larger memory cards are released. So that's a pretty moot point, as well.

 

[liolio]

This lack of HDD was the biggest mistake that MS made on the Xbox360 and the sole reason why the 50MB download limit on XBLA will probably never get lifted.. (I remember them saying something about allowing none HDD owners to play the games from the memory cards..)

Well.. Maybe some i guess..

The limit has been lifted, castelvania something is 97MB, the official limit seems to be 250MG now and up to 450MB for some games.
I've red this on a french site, i'm searching for the source

edit, appears to be from 1up

 

[Arwin]

The limit has been lifted, castelvania something is 97MB, the official limit seems to be 250MG now and up to 450MB for some games.
I've red this on a french site, i'm searching for the source

edit, appears to be from 1up

It was lifted for Castlevania only, for now. Microsoft has indicated that the limit will probably go up though once they have released the new size memorycards. I suspect the new limit would be something like the max of the memory card they will release.

The whole memory card thing on the Xbox is shite. They just wanted to make money form it like Sony did with the PS2, but now that we have memory cards for all sorts of devices, that just plainly sucks. Just let us use any old 2Gb flashcard already.

 

[Tagrineth]

Whoa, I just realized, what does Wii do when you have a lot of VC games?

They dont have a HDD at all!

I guess you could maybe hold ten games if they are about 50 MB each? If they dont use the storage for anything else..

N64 games weigh in the heaviest of all the VC consoles, and the absolute maximum N64 game size is 64MB. Only 3 games, of the top of my head, were actually 64MB games. None of those three are up on the VC yet (in case you're wondering - RE2, Pokemon: Stadium GS, and Conker). The next size down is 40MB, which is also only used by a handful of games.

Most N64 games are actually 12-24MB on average.

SNES games top out at 6MB, and this is about as infrequent as the 64MB N64 games. SNES average is 1-3MB.

Other systems are even smaller, though some Genesis games were mildly large...

 

[Tap In]

But it's so typical of any smart corporation beholden to its shareholders to try and find more ways to squeeze more money out of a venture once they find themselves on top.

Fixed

 

[Fox5]

Mass storage in consoles was an inevitability. If not Hard Disks then flash memory. PS3 would be so much crappier without a HD. Hell even Wii has 512MB of flash storage built in which 360 core does not have.

Sony did the right thing to make it standard. Similarly MS did the right thing last gen by making it standard. Xbox live would have never made it to where it is today if it wasn't for the standard HD in xbox1. Sure it increases the cost of the box.

But it's so typical of MS to try and find more ways to squeeze more money out of a venture once they find themselves on top.

Agreed, but MS still has the advantage on the premium just due to using a 20GB harddrive as standard..that's not so far off from what flash storage can handle right now, and in 2008/2009, I wouldn't be surprised to see a 360 system that replaces the harddrive with a flash drive.

I guess you could maybe hold ten games if they are about 50 MB each? If they dont use the storage for anything else..

I think some of the storage may already be reserved on the wii for other purposes (like streaming data). Oh, and VC games are only about 2MB to 10MB each so far. Wii also supports SD cards.

i'd imagine the account is Steam like where you purchase something you can install it/remove it at will.

The file is locked to a wii, so you can copy it to an sd card, then copy it back to the system when needed, but nintendo does not support redownloading an owned game. You have to pay all over again.

 

[Carl B]

Agreed, but MS still has the advantage on the premium just due to using a 20GB harddrive as standard..that's not so far off from what flash storage can handle right now, and in 2008/2009, I wouldn't be surprised to see a 360 system that replaces the harddrive with a flash drive.

Well, I definitely expect a 'PSThree' to make use of flash-based storage solutions as well. The expense of magnetic storage into perpetuity I don't think is something that was lost on Kutaragi & Co. during development.

 

[Tagrineth]

The file is locked to a wii, so you can copy it to an sd card, then copy it back to the system when needed, but nintendo does not support redownloading an owned game. You have to pay all over again.

Um, you can download it for free any time you want as long as it's on the same hardware...

 

[Acert93]

How is this a good thing? He's talking as if the fact that the Core 360 doesn't have a HDD is great for the consumer when it definitely isn't..

For consumers who want a next gen console for as cheap as possible it is a good thing.

Looking at the market as serving a host of consumers, not all hanging with baited breath on every technical aspect of a machine, it makes sense that as you move down into the casual realm that is driven mainly by games and mindshare that offer a core experience as cheaply as possible. If a consumer shuns the core there is always the premium, but the reality is for many consumers (like parents buying gifts) cost is as important factor as anything else for "entry level" purchases.

I love mass storage, but not making it manditory makes sense from MS's perspective for many reasons. And it is hard to argue for the HDD in a gaming sense (sans online) because the Xbox 1 came and passed with few developers making any significant game altering mechanics or features that could justify the cost. Ditto the PC. Sad, but true. I do wish MS had made the HDD manditory for Live though--miss oppurtunity there imo.

 

[Arwin]

I suspect that the main reason for MS to create a HD-less machine had to do with Playstation in the previous generation. The HDD in the Xbox didn't scale well in terms of cost - I think the drive took ages to go below the $50 threshold, which made it a very expensive component, especially at the end of its lifespan. Sony had a big advantage here, helping them to always be able to match and undercut the Xbox when it came down to pricing.

Since they were launching well before the PS3, Microsoft couldn't really bet on Sony to make a HDD mandatory this time around, and that put them in a difficult position. If they gambled wrong and went for the included HDD again, the PS3 could be released at the same price or even significantly cheaper than the Xbox. If Sony's PS3 would be considerably cheaper than the 360, that could have made it very hard for them to gain marketshare this generation.

As it happens, they are now inbetween the Wii and the PS3, with the Core competing with the Wii, and the HDD version competing with the 20Gb PS3. Considering the initial success of the Wii, they may well be happy that they positioned themselves in a position to compete with that machine's price range.